9. You complain about how vapid the Westside is, but you pay $3,500 a month to live in a Silver Lake duplex because it has "character."

Yoga Echo Park

8. You moved to L.A. a year ago and bemoan the gentrification of Echo Park, downtown and Venice. "Who are all these new people," are the words actually coming out of your mouth.

johnfconway / LA Weekly Flickr pool

7. You honk when another driver screws up. (We all should, but we don't -- not in L.A.) You think a yellow light means that just one car gets to make that left turn through the intersection. (We know better; it's actually three cars.) You stop at stop signs, causing the car behind you to rear-end you. You drive a sensible, Japanese economy car because, rightly, you think money is better spent on other things. But just wait 'til you get settled in. That will change.

6. After planning a high-end window-shopping trip, you end up on Rodeo Road in South L.A. You went to Hancock Park to see Beverly Hills. You looked for Kitson on South Robertson Boulevard but found only marijuana dispensaries and Playboy Gangster Crips graffiti. You think Mar Vista is Marina del Rey but never once wondered where all the boats are. You think Mid-City is South L.A. because there are black people there. You think Westlake is the Eastside because there are Latino people there.

Dennis Romero has worked on staff at several magazines and newspapers, including the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Los Angeles Times, where he participated in Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the L.A. riots. His work has appeared in Rolling Stone online, the Guardian, and, as a
young stringer, the New York Times.